YouTube to Launch Own Music Service

YouTube is preparing to launch a paid music service in order to compete with similar offerings from Pandora and Spotify. "We're adding subscription-based features for music on YouTube with this in mind — to bring our music partners new revenue streams in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars YouTube already generates for them each year," said YouTube in a statement provided to Reuters. YouTube has been criticized by some record labels that claim the company will block their content unless they agree to join the service. Sources cited by Reuters say YouTube has already signed deals with 95% of the labels with which it already works to offer music videos online. YouTube, which is owned by Google, will likely work in conjunction with Google Play All Access, Google's own $10-per-month music service. YouTube's music offering is expected to launch later this year.

And no, I don't mean money.Many independent artists(Adele for example) have not signed licensing deals with Google/Youtube. In retaliation for defying the company, Google/Youtube has decided to not only not offer those artists on its pay service, but to also remove these artists' channels from the FREE Youtube service.When is someone in the US going to do what the EU has done and investigate ways to break up Google into smaller non-monolithic, non-monopolizing companies?

As far as music is concerned, I'm more concerned about Apple than Google. Apple actually has a policy that an artist or record company cannot offer a promotional price for an album on Amazon which is lower than the price on iTunes. In short, if a r...(continues)

Wait, you mean Google is choosing not to provide a free outlet for musicians to use for free so that they can setup shop on Google's dime for selling their music? Doesn't Google know that they are entitled to free exposure? HOW AWFUL!